Shock rooted Jaina to the spot long enough that Sylvanas had strode back around the firepit to meet with the dark ranger from before. They spoke low, in Thalassian again. Their eyes caught the firelight every time they glanced her way, refracting red against the night.

Jaina wanted to continue the conversation. She wanted to protest against Sylvanas' sudden decision to end her part in Vereesa's plan - or protest Sylvanas' involvement entirely. The banshee had no business refusing Jaina like she was an impulsive child!

Jaina's first instinct was to return to the catacombs just to spite the orders she felt Sylvanas was currently delivering to the dark ranger, but that wouldn't be enough. She needed focus and time, and neither would be present under the pressure of hiding from a pack of rabid dark rangers.

Not for the first time since she'd arrived, anger crackled cold and bitter over her more logical thoughts. As before, she tried to remember Vereesa's plea, tried to remember the grief that'd overtaken her friend after Rhonin's death, and Jaina's vow to never, ever bring that sort of pain again.

The reminder had eased off the sharp edges of Jaina's anger before, but now? No. Now, it served as fuel. She had tried, Light damn it all, and now that she might have something to help Vereesa save one sister from an untimely death - that would more than make up for any damage dealt to the second, spiteful one, wouldn't it?

Jaina looked over the small space around her makeshift recovery bed for her staff. A soft querying spell and the staff's crystal took on a delicate gleam. Right beyond where Sylvanas was in the middle of her discussion with the other ranger.

The staff itself wasn't vital to Jaina's spellcasting, but it served as an anchoring point while she drew upon Azeroth's energies. Without it, she would have to reach out to the ley-lines to control the current.

Simple enough.

Jaina reached out a hand underneath the cloak and whispered the chant that would guide her magic toward the ley-line network she knew lay beneath the soil. Human cities were founded near water and ample opportunities for trade. Elven settlements were never far from the ley-lines.

There.

She stretched her awareness towards the roiling arcane energy. It was a live wire underneath her touch, and so close to a font of the Void, it left an oily aftertaste on her tongue.

It would service her well.

With Vereesa already summoned, Sylvanas had nothing left to wield as a deterrent for Jaina. If the banshee was aware of her sudden loss, she didn't show it, and did not seem aware of the opening it allowed for Jaina.

The temptation to head back to that mural and solve the circle of stars was overwhelming, but Jaina had spent decades learning how to temper her passions.

No, what Jaina really needed was leverage.

Some scrap of information that she could use to flip the script. If there were any chance that the banshee had a weakness, Jaina needed to find it; exploit it.

Call her a child?

Power shimmered along her skin. A slow, steady wind kicked up. The heat from the nearby fire was dampened by the frost that crept over her. Jaina stared down at the cloak that covered her, the silver-fur sparking an idea.

An insane idea.

She slipped the cloak on over her own, and cinched it tight before she tugged the hood up over her face. With the guise of the wolf, Jaina took a steadying, grounding breath.

Then unleashed the blizzard.

That steady wind snapped and snarled as it gave birth to a frozen, howling nightmare. Ice crystals formed in mid-air, whirling in a frenzied dance as Jaina drew the wild magic from the ley-lines and flung it around her.

The fire died, cut low by the cold snap. Snow flurried.

Time slowed around her. In a battle, even a half of a second was precious.

Sylvanas and her fellow ranger had only seconds to react as a halo of jagged ice formed over their heads. As they scrambled to escape the trap, seven spears of ice drove down where they'd been.

Jaina moved with the luxury of haste and flung out her hand to call her Staff back to her side. The moment the arcane-infused wood brushed against her palm, the pulse of magic around her was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat. The ebb and flow of energy was now hers to guide.

At once, the air glimmered around her. From the snow-flurry came three mirror images of Jaina herself. They each wore the silver cloak. They each carried the staff, and they each had just a fraction of arcane within them to trick the keen senses of even the most determined elf.

The mirrors immediately conjured and then launched sets of ice bolts against the undead, following on the impulse they'd last felt from Jaina's mind.

Frost was not as effective against unfeeling flesh, but even Sylvanas would be hard to throw off the sluggish impact of the cold.

With the elves distracted, and the blizzard effectively destroying all details beyond a meter or so, Jaina slipped into the storm and toward the inner city.

Time warp distorted noise. Jaina could not rely on the shouts and garbled commands as she fled through the white-out and toward the one place she hoped Sylvanas wouldn't expect.

The funny thing about an arcane-storm was the extension of Jaina's awareness through the wind and the wicked frost that tore through everything in its path. She could pick out the path of every sentient creature as they scrambled for cover. She could feel the structure of the city as the wind whipped around corners and screamed through open hallways.

It gave her Sight through the storm, but it kept the storm's eye upon her. She did not believe for an instant that Sylvanas nor the dark rangers would be well aware of that.

So, with a murmur, she released the spell to the natural forces around her. The storm raged wild, eagerly shedding the reins like an unbroken stallion bolting for open pasture.

The Time Warp ended and seconds returned to their proper duration, the voices that rose over the wind were sharp with agitation. Jaina ducked behind two figures locked in an eternal dance and held her breath as one particular voice drew near.

"Hannah! Isabelle! Trevor!"

The speaker was elven, judging by the lilting accent of her Common. Jaina risked a peek over the shoulder of the leading dancer and watched one of the dark rangers push through the rapidly rising snow drifts. Her bow was slung over her shoulder, her quiver cinched tight to prevent arrows from toppling out when she moved.

Jaina frowned. She couldn't move now, her destination lied on the other side of the open street the ranger walked down, and even a small invisibility spell would instantly draw attention her way.

The dark ranger knelt down and dragged pale fingers through the fresh snow before she straightened up again. Her gaze scoured the nearby buildings, over the statue Jaina hid behind, and down the open lane.

"Issa'nar ana?" The ranger gave the area another long study, then hurried onward in the same direction Jaina wanted to go.

"Great." Jaina collected her staff from where it rested against the dancers, then shrugged back into the snow herself. She expended a little effort to keep the wind up at her back to help disguise her tracks and kept pushing forward.

A flash of disappointment coursed through Jaina as she entered what she believed to be the innermost district of Falor'Thalas and found that Sylvanas had truly spoken when she meant "western spire".

She still had some distance to travel, and by now, the storm had well and truly transformed into a late autumn blizzard. Snow banked up against walls and columns and disguised the true design of that section of the city. Jaina had to slow down, only because now she trudged through knee-deep snow and had to be certain she didn't stumble over any unforeseen obstacles.

"Clea!"

Jaina cursed and slipped hard into the snow. The powder swallowed her whole until she poked her head up high enough to spy the voice's owner.

Nothing but white at first.

Then, a small shadow huddled underneath a creaking branch. Overburdened with snow, it bowed dangerously low against the body of the tree.

"Clea?! Lynara? Hello?"

The voice carried the dry rasp of the forsaken but also the unmistakable pitch of a child.

Jaina cursed again.

So the dark rangers weren't just looking for her. Well, she supposed that gave her an advantage.

"Clea?" The forsaken - no - the child called out into the storm again, her words swallowed by the howling wind.

Jaina risked another peek over the statue's shoulder. The forsaken child had a smaller, less rugged version of the leather blindfold she'd seen many of the sightless forsaken wearing. Jaina thought she could make out a bright yellow flower decorating the side of it. It looked like a sunflower.

Guilt fizzled in her gut.

Jaina cursed a third time and struggled against the emotion. It won out.

Jaina flicked her wrist and released a ripple of arcane energy out into the storm. It would call to even the deadened senses of the dark rangers and lure them in to investigate.

She hurried away, continuing on her westward path.

She berated her choice every step. She'd given up her advantage, and for what? A sycophant of the banshee who would have eagerly given up her position for curried favor.

No.

A child. She'd done it for a child with a sunflower in her hair.

A child cursed with one of the worst existences Jaina could ever picture an Azerothian going through. Her mind flashed back to the Plague. Had this child come from Andorhal? Hearthglen? One of the villages targeted after she'd sailed across the sea to Kalimdor?

The only place she knew she could rule out was after Arthas left for Northrend the second time. The forsaken were monsters, abominations that walked long after the grave should have called them home, but she'd never heard of Sylvanas condoning the resurrection of children.

Even evil has their standards, she mused.

The warmth of the peacebloom tincture had long worn off. Now, her fingers were frostbitten and stiff, resisting every grip, grasp, or gesture she attempted.

The final stretch of her journey left Jaina jittery from hypervigilance. She expected to be discovered, expected to have those horrible shadows swoop down on her. Beyond the storm, there was silence. Beyond the crunch of her footsteps and the rush of her breath, the secrets of the city around her remained in the shadow. When she arrived at the base of that ominous, serpentine spire, Jaina felt like every nerve ending had been overloaded with energy.

The western spire was different than most of the gleaming city. Even with thousands of years separating her from the heyday of Falor'Thalas, there was a subtle undercurrent of malice cut into the very stone itself. The elven structure was woven and twisted around the trunk of a towering tree surrounded by a court of lessers cloaked in the finery of autumn. Vines as thick as Jaina's arm wound through the vegetation and gave the impression of a tangled spider's web.

Snakes and spiders suited the banshee.

There was no door, no veil of hide or cloth to keep the elements out. As Jaina crossed the threshold, the blizzard came along with her to pattern the walls with snow and ice.

Inside, there was only an empty darkness. If there was debris, it was swept away, leaving only the black, clean void as Jaina's welcome into what she believed was Sylvanas' own sanctuary. The foyer was as lifeless as the city itself, with no personal touches - no hint of the woman who must have lurked here at some point in existence.

An interior staircase spiraled along the wall to the upper floors, and without any lead, Jaina could only trace the steps up. The walls were cold to the touch, and though they blocked the bite of the wind, the bitter chill followed in Jaina's footsteps as she crept higher and higher.

Much like the sanctum space Jaina had been given, the western spire was completely cut off from exterior light. With a few soft words, the crystal adorning her staff flickered with arcane and allowed her to see where she was going. Around her, the refracted gleam from over a dozen embedded crystals glimmered like pricks of starlight as she ascended higher and higher. Her fingertips brushed along the imperfections in the exterior wall, and Jaina wondered what sort of pattern she traced along the way.

Up, away from the alabaster and granite of the ground floor, and alone with only her thoughts as company, Jaina could not help but scold herself as the impulsiveness of her actions just now started to catch up to her.

Though, really, had she any other options on the table? She could have darted down into the catacombs and trapped herself in a web of rangers. She could have bolted for the forest and been hunted down like a wounded fox.

Should she have just waited like a good girl for Vereesa to arrive?

No, of course not.

With Falor'Thalas underneath a series of ward-runes, and her without a clear map of the ley-lines; Jaina could not have summoned a portal, or teleported more than a few meters without risking terrible injury to her body.

This was the right course of action, she repeated as a mantra. If she said it enough, she would eventually accept it as truth.

Past the third spiral, the wind was little more than an eerie whistle echoing up from the depths. Further along the steps, and Jaina was a silver ghost slinking through the shadows. Further along still, when her legs protest and her lungs burn with the exertion, the sounds of the storm return with a vengeance. Wood rattled and creaked, metal groaned, and the snap of fabric told Jaina she'd arrived exactly where Sylvanas would never, ever want her.

Here, there was a door. Plain wood, it opened at the gentlest touch of her hand and swung soundlessly outward. Here, Jaina could make out the crescent shape of the elven half of the spire. It curved like a sickle outward with the western wall dominated by wide, sweeping arches that opened onto a sheltered path that curled around the spire like a cat's tail. The wide arches repeated themselves and delivered unto Jaina a bird's eye view of the storm's effects upon the dead city.

Snow flared up against the buildings like waves locked in time. The wind whistled through the open thoroughfares and avenues, tearing opportunistic vines away from the branches they'd bit into.

Beyond Falor'Thalas, the forest disappeared deep into the blizzard. Above the wind, Jaina listened to the groan of the old oak, the moan of the ancient aspen and ash, and the sigh of the spruce. Without the cloud cover, how far would the forest stretch before the mountains commanded the horizon?

A noise drew her away from the arches.

Jaina cocked an ear as she called upon a muffling cantrip that dulled the roar of the wind to a kitten's purr. She turned to investigate the interior.

Here, she saw pieces of Sylvanas' existence strewn about. Where Alleria's loft had been nearly sterile, this space was a visual melody of what still haunted the exiled warchief. Like Alleria, Sylvanas had a place set aside for cartography - it made sense, a ranger in life, she would have trained to map out the lands she was tasked to watch over. Jaina flipped through several of the unfurled ones - there was Falor'Thalas, and what looked to be the mountains themselves. Several loose parchments fell out when she shuffled through older maps that detailed the Glades.

Over along the interior wall that opened into the hollowed trunk, two stands for armor stood sentinel; upon one of them rested the dreadful mantle of the Warchief, and against it, an empty, torn quiver.

Jaina didn't expect to find the bow. After all, before the first Inquisitions, the world had believed Sylvanas died in battle, with Alleria presenting the wicked bone-bow as proof of the deed - for no ranger, living or not, would part from her weapon willingly.

The weapon itself was the trophy hung in Stormwind Keep as a reminder of victory over tyranny, and absolute and complete triumph in the Blood Wars. Jaina remembered how bright the future seemed that night as the Alliance celebrated the end of the war.

Along with the warchief's mantle, the other stand stood empty. Probably meant to present the armor the banshee now wore.

Near one of the arches, the scent of tar lingered and evidence of fletching was scattered across the floor thanks to the wind.

The room was given spots of color; deep blues and greens with accents of black - the forest that Sylvanas must have loved in life. Close away the outside and set the crystals alive, and the banshee would have been in the center of a sequestered thicket.

Jaina headed into the hollowed trunk, and found herself in the middle of a storm of broken items. Torn strips of fabric, a mess of cushions that were shredded, their innards spilled over the wood like viscera. Around her, the melted remains of candles and quills with broken nibs. Parchment filled with scratched out words were half-burned, half crumpled littered the floor, the paper decorated with delicate, curving Thalassian.

Letters to whom?

Her sisters?

Former allies who still knew of her existence?

That noise again.

A rustle of something softer than fabric drew Jaina's attention further into the dark, and with the lift of her staff she revealed -

A simple jewelry box tucked away carefully in the middle of the ransacked space. Three stones sparkled at her, red, blue, and emerald. Something about the ruby stone gave her pause - it looked familiar - her fingers brushed over the cool stone.

She didn't understand. What was so important about this place that Sylvanas had deemed it off-limits? Jaina saw no weapons, no grand designs. Nothing save the memories of an elf.

"Was this everything you hoped for?"

Sylvanas' voice whipped Jaina around. The banshee stood in the fading shadows, the mist that coiled over her body thicker than the darkness that dominated the room. It was more tangible, more real somehow.

"I don't know what I expected," Jaina answered honestly.

Sylvanas strode into the broken room, herding Jaina away from the trinkets and back toward the exit. She adjusted the pendants carefully, then turned her glower on Jaina.

"I was only trying to help," Jaina said when no further response from Sylvanas was forthcoming.

"Help?" Sylvanas scoffed. "Meddle, you mean. Though with your track record - I wasn't surprised you didn't abstain from interfering." Sylvanas' words rang with that playful, mocking tone that Jaina was beginning to associate with the banshee lording a secret amusement.

Power hummed at Jaina's fingertips but she did not release it just yet. "Neither of us have time for games, Banshee. What are you insinuating?"

Sylvanas smirked and pounced on the opening she'd been looking for. "Why, the Legion, of course. The world was on the cusp of doom and yet the leader of the Kirin Tor disappears? How dreadful."

Jaina sent an impassive glance down to her bandaged fingers, the accusation easily brushed off as errant dust. "That's what you're holding against me? My proven-right prediction against your Horde?"

"Oh, no." Sylvanas shook her head and took a step forward as she aimed her next attack.

To Jaina's credit, she did not respond with a step backward. The time for diplomacy had ended. She would be happy to remind Sylvanas that she was a leader in her own right, and with a personal power that far eclipsed that of a disgraced undead elf.

"Let's retrace the steps, shall we? You abstained from that all-too famous translocation power when your High King faced down his own doom -"

"You abandoned the Alliance to die!"

Sylvanas clucked her tongue. "Is that what alleviated the guilt you felt? Blaming it on someone else?"

That icy rush of power crept higher up Jaina's hands. It took everything to remind herself that Sylvanas enjoyed throwing out bait and then digging salt into the wounds she inflicted. Don't rise to it, don't rise to it, don't rise to it, she repeated over and over.

Why not? Another part of her, a darker - far more vengeful part wondered.

Jaina closed her eyes against the sound of Sylvanas' smug chuckle. She counted down from twenty, centered her focus, and focused on her breathing.

Sylvanas, undeterred by Jaina's lack of response, pushed deeper. "Do you blame the Horde, Lord Admiral, for how you just let your father die? Theramore's built on his bones, is it not?"

That snapped Jaina's eyes back open. The mantra died. The promise to be the better woman turned to ash on her lips.

"You know nothing about Theramore," Jaina growled. A pressure pounded just behind her eyes as raw arcane energy coalesced within her. "You know nothing about me -"

"I know you could have stopped Arthas."

That stole her breath. It reached right into the very core of what Jaina had spent years rebuilding and snatched those emotional supports like they were made of sand, but Jaina has had years to learn how to brace against the crash of that particular wave, and so lets the accusation wash over her. Arthas was too distant to be anything more than a dull ache somewhere in the vicinity of her girlhood.

The energy around her died. The icy wave of magic that had been circling around her fell to the ground like raindrops, splashing at her feet, and the pressure eased behind her eyes.

"Arthas?"

"Yes," Sylvanas sneered, and stalked forward with her claws figuratively extended. "I remember your lament in the Halls of Reflection -"

"Stratholme." Jaina cut in. "Yes. It's hard to not question if I did the right thing." She set her staff down, the butt of it clicking gently as it came to rest on the floor. The ice dripped off her hands as she let the spell go. "But Arthas was - " she blinked as the mental tally of the years registered. "Nearly twenty years ago. Whatever legacy he forged, it's gone now -"

"Gone?" Sylvanas snapped, and the crimson of her gaze burned through the delicate skin around her eyes. "You think Arthas is gone?"

"I know he's gone," Jaina risked stepping closer. A shudder raced through the banshee before her as she gripped the ruby pendant tighter against her. "He has no power over you anymore, Sylvanas - haven't you let him have it long enough?"

"You know nothi-"

"I know why you don't want to raise Vereesa in undeath." Now Jaina recognized the ruby stone, as Sylvanas cradled it in her hand. She remembered asking Vereesa about it at Rhonin's funeral, when the youngest Windrunner had held it out over the bodiless pyre and debating dropping it into the flames.

Sylvanas stilled. "Do you now?"

Jaina was treading dangerous waters. "I've been trying to figure out why you were so damned mercurial about my being here. After all, if I fail, then your little sister comes back and stays … but not for you." Jaina's words trailed off as she voiced her thoughts aloud.

Sylvanas now stared at her over a shoulder, her look venomous. Even in undeath, tension coiled in that powerful frame, and the sobering realization that the wrong word, or if she overstepped too soon, Jaina would be on the receiving end of a banshee's malicious temper.

"Well?" Sylvanas faced her. The sneer of her lips revealed the sharp point of her fangs. "By all means, finish your thought."

"If … there is another way to save Alleria, then Vereesa doesn't have to die, but her life - their life - will continue on … without you." Jaina risked another step forward. Sylvanas was stock still against the table she stood before. "Either way, you feel like you've got to make a sacrifice again, don't you?"

Sylvanas didn't answer. The venom in her features was frozen.

It was an opening Jaina had to take. She thought of her reconciliation with her mother and the release of the grief she'd carried on her shoulders. The burden Sylvanas must carry still … "You don't have to sacrifice anything, B… Sylvanas. Let them in, talk to them - there's still time to heal -"

"Heal?" That drew a response. Sylvanas laughed, dark and bitter. "The dead don't heal, you stupid child. We stagnate. We rot. We're meant to be in the ground -"

"You don't believe that - if you just -"

"If I just what? Simper for mercy? Let love in?" Sylvanas snarled. "Arthas killed that -"

"Arthas is DEAD!" Jaina's voice cracked. "He's been dead for years! He can't hurt anyone anymore. He can't hurt you anymore, so why do you still allow him power over you?!"

Jaina might as well have struck true with an ice lance for how deathly still Sylvanas went. For an agonizing heartbeat, she dared to hope that she'd cracked through the Banshee Queen to reach Sylvanas underneath.

"Get out."

Jaina blinked, not quite understanding.

"I said get out!" Sylvanas charged at her, her form unraveling into tendrils of shadow and necromancy. The banshee's scream crescendoed into a dreadful wail that forced Jaina to drop her staff; forced her hands to clap against her ears in a pitiful defense against the magic that assaulted her.

Gods, even her bones reverberated with the force and pressure built and built and then released in a single rush of sweet agony in her.

Her vision blurred.

Jaina cried out as that mass of shadows slammed into her and flung her back against the archways. She twisted to catch herself. An alarming bolt of pain exploded outward from her spine as she overextended to snatch the elegant latticework to prevent her toppling even further.

She skidded to a stop with her heels just over the edge of the tower. The bandages over her fingers were stained red again and she knew that she'd ripped her fingertips further. They throbbed in time with her racing heartbeat - she couldn't keep her grip forever.

Just as her fingers gave way, and the world just started to lurch around her - a powerful claw tangled in the fabric of her robes and hauled her up and up further. Her hands slapped over half-corporeal arms and struggled for purchase only to find none. As soon as her fingers closed over cold, hard flesh, it went to mist and left her grip floundering.

"Leave." The words came out in a hiss, a whisper that scratched at her eardrums. "Get the hell out of my city and never come back."

Jaina struggled, tried to find the elf inside the phantom that had a hold of her. There was nothing left in that creature but the burn of torment.

Then?

Jaina felt the cold rush of wind. The whistle of air. The panic that welled in her throat as she fell down, further down - she didn't even have her staff - the tremor of her body as she readied a teleportation spell - how much time did she have before the ground -

Oblivion.